Colorado’s oil and natural gas industry has built a full head of steam as it rolls into the second half of 2018, with companies adding workers, spending on equipment and services and watching oil production numbers trending up.

Since the bottom dropped out of the commodity-driven oil and gas business three years ago, energy pundits have pointed to this as the recovery year; the year when supply and demand curves would finally reconnect.

Safe to say, their tea leaves were on the money.

“We are seeing a solid rebound that should continue for the near term,” said Bernadette Johnson, vice president for market intelligence at DrillingInfo, in Littleton.

Johnson noted that there were 35 drilling rigs being run in Colorado by 20 companies in early June. Of those, 22 were operating in Weld County and three elsewhere in the DJ Basin.

As a result, Colorado’s oil production figures have hit record heights while natural gas production has likewise returned to pre-downturn levels.

“Since December, we have seen oil grow by nearly 10,000 barrels per day every month,” she said.

For the past year, a consensus was building that the U.S. oil production would reach the 10 million barrel per day milestone by early 2018. In February, the US Energy Information Administration confirmed it.